With the growth of the tobacco industry, numerous tobacco harvesters have been developed and marketed. One well-known harvester includes a mechanism by which tobacco leaves are transported to a storage bin after being inserted between pairs of moving conveyor belts. A drawback of this known harvester is that the tobacco leaves must be manually removed from the stalk and introduced to the conveyor system.
Another popular tobacco harvester is a self-propelled automatic unit which strips select tobacco leaves from their stems and transports the removed leaves to a cart carried by the harvesting unit. This unit required a complex conveyor arrangement to move the tobacco leaves to the cart, as well as a mechanism by which the cart is lifted off the ground and brought into association with the discharge end of the conveyor unit. This harvester is quite large, and correspondingly expensive.
Recently, a harvester has been introduced to the market which is towed by a tractor, and which is automatic. A significant drawback of this harvester is that all of the leaves are stripped from the stems. Therefore, the large and small, top and bottom leaves are comingled, a feature resisted both by the farmer and the tobacco industry. Another drawback of this new harvester is that the tobacco stalks must be maintained below a given height, or else the stripping action of the harvester will be impaired.
It is toward the elimination of the disadvantages noted above that the present invention is directed.